"So I have, sir. But how did you find that out?"
"In your pulse—in your pulse. It was very foolish. Mind, you mayn't commit such an indiscretion again. It might cost you your life."
The patient, of course, was impressed with Mutchkin's acuteness, and so was the apprentice. When the lad and his master had retired, the former asked:—
"How did you know he had taken peas for dinner, sir? Of course it wasn't his pulse that told you."
"Why, boy," the instructor replied, "I saw the pea-shells that had been thrown into the yard, and I drew my inference."
The hint was not thrown away on the youngster. A few days afterwards, being sent to call on the same case, he approached the sick man, and, looking very observant, felt the pulse.
"Ah!—um—by Jove!" exclaimed the lad, mimicking his master's manner, "this is very imprudent. It may cost you your life. Why, man, you've eaten a horse for your dinner."
The fever patient was so infuriated with what he naturally regarded as impertinence, that he sent a pathetic statement of the insult offered him to Mutchkin. On questioning his pupil as to what he meant by accusing a man, reduced with sickness, of having consumed so large and tough an animal, the doctor was answered—
"Why, sir, as I passed through from the yard I saw the saddle hanging up in the kitchen."
This story is a very ancient one. It may possibly be found in one of the numerous editions of Joe Miller's facetiæ. The writer has, however, never met with it in print, and the first time he heard it, Dr. Mutchkin, of Flintbeach, was made to figure in it in the matter above described.